Champlin man arrested after offering to pay for sex with Dayton teen

The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office has arrested a 52-year-old man from Champlin after he texted a teenage girl and offered to pay her for sex. On Nov. 19, Mark Jerome Anderson was formally charged with felony prostitution of a known juvenile for an incident allegedly occurring a month earlier.

On Oct. 17, a father of a known juvenile female, born in April 1995 contacted Dayton Police to file a complaint when he learned an older man had been “sexting” his daughter. According to the complaint, officers were able to identify the subscriber of the cell phone used in the “sexting” belonged to Anderson, of Champlin.

The victim reported she met Anderson in an online chat room eventually exchanging phone numbers and text messages on Oct. 9. According to the complaint, phone records reveal the text messages were sexual in nature discussing “hooking up” and paying the victim “cash” for engaginging in a sexual act.

During texting, Anderson and the victim discussed their ages and details of where to meet each other in person. Anderson offered to pick up the victim from school and pay for sex. When he arrived at the school, he sent a text message to the victim to alert her that he had arrived for their pre-arranged meeting – but the victim did not see the message because her phone had been taken from her earlier by a school official.

In his statement, Anderson admitted to meeting the victim in a chat room and to text messaging with her. Anderson is currently in the Hennepin County jail on $75,000 bail.